I clean my pc from dust quite regularly. Once a few months. The last time I cleaned my pc was today :). Also I don't have stock H110 coolers anymore. They both broke 3 years ago. Sadly it was my fault, so I couldn't rma h110. I use 2 Noctua nf-a14 fans instead. They are both in great condition and work perfectly fine. Fans are set to 33% speed at 20 c and 100% at 60 c. They show no anomalies. Monitoring software says that pump is sitting at 1500-1550 rpm as it always was.

Now here is the tricky part... Today I've decided to change thermal paste (Silver 5). So I completely disassembled h110 from my pc to clean it from dust with compressed air. After I reapplied new thermal paste, I saw no difference in idle temps (40~ c average). But now, when I run RealBench, temps rise even faster than before (it's the matter of seconds at 100% load), and don't just stop at 80~ c, but keep rising "indefinitely" (at this point I simply turn off stress test for obvious reasons).

You might assume that I applied thermal paste the wrong way (which I am sure I didn't, because that's not the first time I am doing it, and have never had such issues), but it seems like it is the h110 that works even worse now after physically moving it around. For whatever reason when I start stress tests and temperatures begin to rise I hear some noises like the water is running, or gurgling. That shouldn't be the case since pump runs at constant speed no matter the temperature. Also one of the tubes is now completely cold, and the other one is now hotter than it was before. This wasn't the case when h110 was working properly. Both tubes were somewhat warm. Also I haven't noticed any leaks.

Since one tube is getting really hot and the other one keeps the same temperature, then I guess the pump is not doing it's job properly? But if that's the case then why am I hearing gurgling sounds? More importantly, why do I hear these sounds at all now after moving water cooler parts around?

Any ideas? -.-

P.S. I forgot to tell you that one side of the radiator (that connects to the cold tube) is also completely cold when temps hit 80+ degrees.

Can you test the CPU with a different cooler? Can you test the cooler on a different CPU?

A little gurgling at startup is common but (aside from very brief and very sporadic drippy or flushy sounds) it shouldn't really occur during normal operation. The inlet tube (from the rad to the block) would normally be cooler than the outlet tube (from the block to the rad) but it shouldn't be the sort of dramatic hot-vs-cold difference you describe.

Are any tubes pinched or blocked? If they're flexible then you can work your way pinch-wiggling them along their lengths until you find a clogged chunk or a blocked bubble or something. You can try "flexing" the rad a little to sense if there's shifting liquid/air mass within or scary creaking noises, you can do the same with the CPU block, shake it around and scrutinize carefully for cracks, etc. You can try tugging on all the connectors/fittings/etc. Basically inspect everything until you find a fault or you're confident there isn't a fault to be found.

I've never had an AIO leak but I've seen bad old AIOs which were pulled from machines at work, leaks are (extremely) rare but not impossible. In both cases there was no evidence of liquid residue/spills in the computers, only less liquid (and more air) inside the "closed" loops than expected ... so very slow "evaporation" leaks.

I have had an AIO pump shut down - a Kraken, lol - after almost 4 years of near-constant use. It started making bad noises, they gradually got louder, after a while it just seized up and BIOS alarm triggered system shutdown.

AIO blocks are the same as any other waterblock, they can get corroded or gunked up inside, although I've never opened one up for inspection.

If you're confident your TIM application was already done correctly then no point in another attempt. You could salvage some parts of a "faulty" AIO to build into a full DIY loop but it's probably better to just replace the AIO with another if you don't want the messy complications.

I'm always apprehensive about replacing hardware before identifying exactly which hardware is the fault which needs replacement, but we do what we gotta do, lol.

lol you could post a takeapart vid on YouTube, share with the world, maybe even make a few bucks.

Glad to see your mobo/CPU is still running well.

Hi Korth, long time no chat. 🙂

Akreontage, it sounds like you got this figured out. Regarding the gurgling, putting together your other symptoms it makes me think the pump was cavitating based on hot liquid and blockage in the loop. Cavitation can't be sustained and will damage the pump, perhaps that happened in your case. The damage is not repairable (or highly impractical) for these packaged systems, so your new equipment was the best move for you anyway. Glad you got it sorted out.

Personally I've had years of solid service from the Corsair AIO coolers (knock on wood), and I have a new one sitting in my office waiting to install should I have issues or just feel like tinkering.

NB!

After using an NZXT Kraken x62 for a day I have to point out an exceptional quality of a product, BUT the software that controls speeds, lighting and monitoring (called CAM btw) is absolutely terrible. When you install CAM on your system, the CAM process will read/write HDD non-stop, meaning that your HDD will never turn off (constant 0.1MB/s, without exceptions...). There is a setting in options that "should" prevent CAM from doing this to your drives, but it seems like if you have more than one drive in your system then it just doesn't work.

So, don't say I didn't warn you!

I guess I am going to plug coolers right into mobo instead and control them the old fashioned way.

P.S. It seems like this issues has been there for 3 years (earliest post January 28, 2015 4:53 AM). 🙂 https://support.camwebapp.com/forums/252256-cam-bugs/suggestions/16998682-still-incessant-hdd-activi...
So yeah... Don't buy their stuff.

P.P.S. Oh, and also CAM is always online, meaning that you can't change your fan speeds or anything else if your internet goes out. 🙂

P.P.P.S. Wow, next time I should pay more attention to software rather than hardware. Their software support pages are filled with rage and pain. https://support.camwebapp.com/forums/252256-cam-bugs/suggestions/33788539-cam-software-is-a-disaster...
I think I am going to refund it, and buy something from corsair again. -.- I've contacted NZXT support, and will see what they will tell me. If it'll be something like "unplug and plug socket into wall and restart your pc", then I am definitely sending it back.

UPD: So...

I had a short Internet outage today. I've restarted my pc to "just in case" and then I realized that... I cannot cool my CPU anymore. 🙂 🙂 🙂
This sCAM doesn't work in offline, so if you want to cool your processor you need to be online. 😄 How about that?

Definitely do not buy NZXT coolers.

If you don't like CAM datamining and autoupdating then just block it in your firewall settings.

If you don't like CAM itself, there are many alternatives ...
https://www.reddit.com/r/NZXT/comments/752zm4/cam_alternative/do4953r/

(and yo Davemon long time sup dawg respect aight? :cool: ... gangsta pimp stroll, uh huh bow chicka bow wow)